What Could Have Gone Better and Why Elections Matter

Attack on Pensions

This is an issue we have been tracking and working on continually, while the Legislature has been ignoring it since 2011. Although we fought hard, we learned throughout this session that we lost this fight on election day. Members of the legislature disregarded the facts and chose to vote ideologically, based on numbers from a think-tank instead of an actuarial report

Teacher Licensure

HB 1329 would have reduced the 30 year experience requirement for a lifetime teaching license to 20 years. While it passed easily in the House chamber, the Senate defeated the bill. Senators considered the lifetime teaching licensure a badge of honor, rather than a benefit to provided by NDPERS. veteran teachers. They were also concerned about missing out on additional reviews that would occur over the 10-year period, reiterating their distrust in our public educators. Unfortunately, the legislature failed to provide this benefit to teachers.

Because of this, HB 1040 passed and will close the defined benefit pension plan to new employees. There were some changes made at the last minute and we will keep monitoring the situation. We will continue to keep up the heat on them about their decision now and when the true cost becomes apparent during the next legislative session.

Necessary Raises for Public Workers and Educators

This legislative session, funding bills went through at the very end. While there were some increases, we still fell short of where our state needs to be and what we asked for at 8% and 8%. After this past election, we knew that funding would be an uphill battle this session. K-12 funding ended with a 4% and 4% increase with an added 0.5% for special education funding. Additionally, a section in SB 2013 requires that 70% of the increased funding must go towards nonadministrative salaries. Public employees and higher education funding ended at 6% and 4%. These percentages are a win in our book; however, they are not up to par with our current economic environment. We must continue to pay close attention to the actions of our elected officials as we head into another election season. Continued on next page.

No Stipends for Foreign Language Education

Further demonstrating the priorities of our legislature, SB 2354 – which would have expanded foreign language education in kindergarten through third grade – failed in the House in March. The bill would have appropriated a mere $25,000 to create a pilot program providing stipends to educators who teach a foreign language.

SB 2354 passed easily through the Senate on a 37-7 vote but was defeated in the House after concerning discussion regarding foreign language education. One Representative claimed he did not want kids learning the “language of a third world country that nobody around here speaks”, while another stated that teaching North Dakota children a second language may allow them to leave North Dakota or the country. The bill was ultimately defeated on a 36-54-4 vote.

1,881

We had 1,881 people submit an action alert this session. Of those, 1,104 were members and 777 were allies in public education and public service. This shows us that we have a small group of dedicated members taking legislative action and sharing our alerts with family, friends, and their communities! Below is a map of where our action alert submissions came from.

Lobby Day Attendees

What better way to be active during the legislative session than to go to the Capitol and talk face-to-face with your legislators? North Dakota

United brought 74 members to the Capitol for two Lobby Day

74 events, where members had the chance to participate in a Q&A session with the House Education Committee, talk to their legislators, and sit on the Senate and House floor during the floor session.

Emails Sent

ND United members were most vocal about HB 1532 this session, pushing back against the private school voucher legislation by sending 57,507 emails to legislators in opposition and 843 emails to the Governor asking him to veto the bill. Members sent thousands of additional emails to their legislators regarding pensions, school lunches, funding, and other legislation as shown below! Note: these numbers only account for emails sent through our action alerts; many members sent personal emails as well.

Testimonies Submitted

264

We had an incredible number of testimonies submitted this session regarding parental rights, vouchers, teacher support, book bans, pensions, tenure, and other issues!

Vouchers were on the minds of our members who sent letters to the editor. Nine of the eleven letters written by our members were penned in opposition to HB 1532. Another letter was written in support of SB 2239, which would have maintained and invested in the NDPERS definedbenefit pension plan, while the final letter was written in opposition to parental rights bill SB 2260.

Although the legislative session has ended, there are several things you can do to stay active and keep up the pressure heading into the 2025 legislative assembly.

First, if you would like to stay involved and be prepared for the next legislative session, head to the Issues and Action page of our website at https://www.ndunited.org/issues-action/ to sign up and to stay involved!

Your legislators still represent you and your community. Maintain communication with them and make sure they know your positions on issues important to you; staying in their ear about their votes is a great way to remind them who they represent. You know more about the issues that impact you than they do!

Meanwhile, there will be a general election held in November of 2024. If we learned anything from this legislative assembly, it is that we need more advocates for public schools and public services representing us in the legislature, working to make North Dakota the best it can be. Talk to your network about running for office! If you or anyone you know is considering running, please feel free to reach out to us at legislative@ndunited. org and we can help figure out next steps along the way to an election campaign.

Thank you again for all your work this legislative session!